Section for Specialist Repositories

The Section for Specialist Repositories was established in 1979 in order to provide a forum for non-local government archivists. Membership now exceeds 800 people.

Originally founded as the Specialist Repositories Group (SRG), SSR now provides a forum for those employed outside local record offices and maintains a core interest in higher education.

Its membership is now diverse, both geographically and in terms of the institutions for which members work. We particularly seek to articulate and represent the interests of those in small archive services, and our members include archivists working in business, museums, schools etc

To view papers of the Section please click here. From an extract of a letter describing the first meeting of the Society of Archivists in 1946, the first meeting of the Section on 13 December 1979 and the latest agenda papers it shows our development and commitment to our members.

What we do and what is our relationship with the rest of the ARA?

The section has an important role in the ARA, in bringing together the interests of many lone archivists or archivists working in specialised environments.

We act as a link between those working in archives and not members of the ARA who require support in our field. We do this by assisting our affiliate groups in providing training end educational resources for archivists and those working in the records keeping fields.

Many of our initiatives have benefited members of the ARA as a whole.

These initiatives include:

development of archival description standards and methods of listing for a wide range of records

the output of the Professional Methodology Panel on standards and performance indicators

the original idea for British Archives edited by Julia Sheppard and Janet Foster (now in its 4th edition

a major report on the role and resources of university repositories

encourages non-ARA members responsible for the preservation and conservation of records to join the Association.

Affiliate groups

We have a number of affiliate groups, allowing the ARA to build a strong relationship with other groups working in our sector. These include: Religious Archives Group; Historic Houses Archivists Group; Health Archives and Records Group; Charity Archivists and Records Managers; Parliamentary and Politicial Parties Archive Group; School Archivists Group..

Additionally we have a strong working relationship with GLAM (Group for Literary Archives and Manuscripts), an independent group established in 2005 to bring together archivists, librarians, curators, writers, researchers, and anyone else with an interest in the collecting, preservation, use and promotion of literary archives and manuscripts in Britain and Ireland.

In the following pages you will find details of:

the section representatives and who to contact for help.

the section news, activities, training and events

minutes of section meetings

details of our newsletters

supporting resources

Would you like to find out more or join this Section?

If you have a general enquiry or would like to join this Section then please contact us or please open the SSR Leaflet file by clicking here.

'Postcards from NHS Lothian's ground-breaking, and at times controversial, 'Take Care' campaign, part of the Edinburgh and Lothian HIV/AIDS collection recently added to the UNESCO UK Memory of the World Register 2011, courtesy of Lothian Health Services Archive, Edinburgh University Library'.